Chapter 130 Chapter 130 Dealing with Grandmaster-level Experts
The next day, within the entire Caisi Temple, from the Dharma King to the secret guards, from the lamas to the novices, not a single person felt anything amiss.
Eric also kept silent, but internally, he placed even greater importance on those at the Grandmaster level.
After bidding farewell to the Great Vehicle Dharma King and politely declining his insistence to stay, Eric, accompanied by his four chief secret guards, left the Caisi Temple.
The reason for finding a new residence wasn't because Eric couldn't adapt to temple life, but rather for the convenience of Lusien's recruitment efforts. After all, vampires generally don't favor places saturated with Buddhist energy.
Eric initially thought that finding vampires would be relatively easy, but to his surprise, after searching all over Los Angeles, he had only managed to gather three.
Of course, it's not that vampires were scarce, but rather that those meeting Eric's criteria were few.
Eric sought to recruit vampires, not blood slaves.
In fact, many people confuse vampires with blood slaves.
Vampires are a race formed through genetic mutation. They are not only powerful but also capable of shapeshifting. They are not afraid of sunlight or items lacking holy power, like crosses.
On the other hand, blood slaves are merely "livestock" tamed by vampires. Although they gain some vampire abilities after the initial embrace, they are generally weaker and fear sunlight. The prototypes of vampires in Hollywood movies are typically blood slaves.
Eric naturally understood this distinction, so blood slaves were immediately ruled out.
Even if they were genuine vampires, Eric wouldn't casually bring them back to his country. Each vampire brought back by Lusien would be evaluated with the "True Sight" to assess their potential.
Because, just like humans, vampires also have what could be termed as "aptitude."
The better the aptitude of a vampire, the more dark energy they can absorb and the higher they can rise in rank. Conversely, vampires with poor aptitude might struggle to absorb dark energy, let alone advance in rank!
Although Country A holds a high position in human society, it is considered a veritable "wilderness" in the eyes of vampires!
This is because vampires are a highly territorial race. Once they leave their homeland, various problems arise. For example,
In the Americas, vampires absorb power at an extremely slow rate. The same vampire who takes a hundred years to rise from Baron to Viscount in Europe would need a thousand years in the Americas.
In Africa and Oceania, vampires are almost unable to absorb energy from the outside world. If a vampire depletes their blood energy in these two places, they would need to return to Europe or the Americas to recover.
Of course, what vampires find most repellent is Asia. Here, not only can they not replenish blood energy, but their own strength will gradually decline.
It is for this reason that vampires cling to Europe, refusing to move no matter how powerful the Church becomes.
And most of the vampires in Country A have poor aptitude. They were either driven to Country A to fend for themselves or were exiled here by European families for their mistakes.
And these were precisely the vampires Eric was looking for.
Firstly, recruiting these exiled vampires wouldn't cause any trouble, and secondly, among them were some with quite decent aptitude.
In order to have enough time to recruit vampires, Eric specifically called Tan Ailing to say he would return to the country later.
Tan Ailing didn't inquire much upon learning that he wasn't engaged in dangerous affairs. She only said that her internal injuries were about to heal, and after that, she planned to return to her hometown in Cangzhou to visit her parents, asking Eric to contact her after he returned to the country.
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Having obtained the time off, Eric immediately flew to all the major cities in Country A. Fortunately, he had just acquired a considerable sum of money from Li Hong; otherwise, he would have had to rely on his four chief secret guards to rob banks.
Upon arriving in each city, Lusien would perform his vampire summoning spell.
This spell could forcibly summon all vampires of lower rank than the caster.
It was fortunate that Eric had this spell; otherwise, it would have taken several years to gather enough manpower one by one!
In just one month, Eric had recruited seventy-six genuine vampires, including sixty-three Barons, twelve Viscounts, and one Earl.
After leaving a spiritual imprint of loyalty in the soul of each vampire, Eric returned to the country with nearly a hundred people in tow on a chartered plane.
Shanghai Pudong International Airport.
Today, coming here to pick someone up was definitely not in vain.
Seventy or eighty tall and handsome foreigners stunned everyone in the hall.
"Oh my god, why are there suddenly so many handsome guys..."
"...Could it be a group outing organized by a foreign modeling agency?"
"Oh god, I just prayed to you yesterday for a handsome boyfriend, and today you've brought one for me?... With so many, how am I supposed to choose..."
Such conspicuousness was unavoidable.
Perhaps even the deities of Celestia felt that the "dedication" level of pet contracts was inhumane, so they strictly stipulated that a person could only sign such a pet contract once in their lifetime. Even with Eric's strength, he couldn't break such rules.
Moreover, pets couldn't be far from their owners, so Eric didn't sign pet contracts with those vampires again, only using a contract that ensured their loyalty.
The vampires from Country A who had only signed the master-servant contract couldn't freely enter and exit the Agate Space like Lusien, and Eric didn't want to spend a lot of magic to teleport all seventy-plus people into the Agate Bead.
Therefore, he openly brought these people back to the country. After all, these vampires also had identities as "people," so there was no issue of illegal immigration.
Not caring about the commotion caused by their group, Eric, accompanied by his guard of vampire servants, left the hall and boarded two luxurious coaches that had been rented in advance from the airport.
Their destination was the Jinmao Tower in Shanghai.